Land Surveyor Blogs

I have been talking with some of the wonderful folks on here and I think I can help some of you and learn from many of you. I am a computer and network systems engineer and by NO means a surveyor. So what brought me here.. Well when I was in school I worked as a survey tech and construction inspector for about 5 years and I still help my uncle as a rod man when he needs an extra hand on a weekend here and there. So let’s get down to what brought me here. My uncles Recon is a little slow compared to some of his other equipment and the cable is intermittent. I noticed this when I was out on a survey with him in November. So as we talked through doing some TOPO and setting some corner’s for a property survey I came up with the idea of a droid app that work sort of like his recon. Well I am well into software development mode. I am hoping I will have a nice program for him come this spring to play with and do some testing. Then work up from there.

Well in my meetings with Justin, Gary, Skip, Richard, Scott, Dave and others. I have found that the manufactures of the equipment sell you the hard ware and then say have fun talk to you later for a fee, Well I am hoping to help as many people as I can. I do have a full time job and I can’t say I don’t want to make a little money but my goal to save everyone a lot of money. Here is how I am looking to do it. I am going to build Step by step repair manuals and attempt to stock the most common hardware to repair equipment. So I can repair or YOU can repair your equipment and know the deepest darkest secrets from the inside. I am talking touch screens, internal cables, battery cells, Cable ends like Lemo and Fisher. Anything that has been taken from the common market and used in survey equipment not tripods or tri-brachs.

You ask what brought me to this.. Well I was talking to Justin and he referred me to Gary who has had a GPS unit broken for almost 3 years (2.5+). Ashtech wants an arm and a leg to repair it. Now it took me a week to come up with all the details for the parts. (But I didn’t have the equipment sitting in front of me.) I did find the screen and digitizer numbers with much other help from other surveyors and tech people on this site.  The difference with me is that I repair laptops, cell phones, network equipment, ipods and the like. So I am well experienced in removing the parts and pulling them apart and putting them back together. So with my knowledge I am going to build manuals as I repair or gain access to equipment to document the equipment tear-down and put back together. I am thinking step by step in a PDF and maybe a YOUTUBE video. I guess it will depend. This is all just getting started on that point. Gary's ProMark 3 is going to be the first to get the NorthStar treatment. I hope that you all will like this.

I also have answered what seems to a computer person or engineers common sense questions. I AM HAPPY TO DO THIS.

Why doesn’t my new hard drive not work?

Why doesn’t my 4gb SD card work in my GPS unit but my 2GB SD does?

Now here is my payoff. I am not asking for any donations. Or any pay of any type. Just consider us when you buy computer, electronic, communication and network equipment. If we don’t have the best price and support to make it worth it don’t by from us. We will do our best but in these tight times we understand sometimes it comes down to that last few penny's.

Well I hope I have not babbled too much and I hope we can all help each other and see each other into the future.

Dan